for writing, and for me;

I like rainy days, inspiration, having patience, and beauty. I currently possess none of them.

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

sunset

and then the sun withdrew its benevolence,

and the sky lost all colour

leaving behind on clouds

chromatic vestiges

cradling the last burning golden embers

like memories

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

Junkyard City

It’s a junkyard, this city

Weathered by windswept, unwanted, waste

and foul flavoured fuel - long forgotten.

Trash, everywhere.

There used to be many things. 

Somethings.

Streams. Blue skies. A sky. Hah.

and maybe clouds -

layered in fluffy, velvet rings -

and maybe birds -

whirling on wind-woven wings -

and maybe schools -

and civilisations -

and even kings - 

People dreamed in this city. 

Once. Perhaps I did too - a fool’s paradise.

But delusions were snared in the plastic bags,

seals by the rotting cans,

smothered by smoke and smog, 

Killed by ourselves.

Death by our very own hands. 

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

A rip-off of The Windhover

Go read it if you haven’t already - The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

Woodpecker:

Whittling wood-pecker,

Wondrous worm-wounder,

Whistling winds,

Wimpling wings,

Whirling with worlds,

Woodpecker. 

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

broken bridges

It feels like a moment of transition. A stage in which you’re stuck in the middle, unable to move forward because of something you’re not quite sure of, yet unable to go back, because you’ve changed too much. The change this time is quite painful though - whereas before, the shift was fluid, quick, and easily grasped, now it’s become something murkier, more unstable, less clean-cut rules and conditions and ‘marks-you-need-to-get-into-your-course’s, amd more of a wooden board bridge with a lot of gaps and no railing to keep you safe and no light to guide you - every time you take a step, your foot falls into one of the many holes on its rotted wooden planks, and, fumbling, you must pull it out, scraping the back of your ankles against jagged surfaces and slimy thoughts you’d rather not think about, all the while wondering, when exactly it will end. 

You crave the past - better times, or so they appear to be in your memories, though you know that it’s only because you haven’t adapted to the now that the past appears to be more beautiful, and that even back then you were stepping on these same rotting wooden planks, filled with holes. Perhaps you’re unwilling to adapt - unwilling to let go of a world that was more comfortable, easier, more familiar. You wonder, sincerely, how you managed this when you were younger, how you managed to walk past the holes in the planks without batting an eye, how you could be so fine and assured in your safety despite there being no railings, how you could ignore the gaping hole of empty darkness in front of you despite its echoes and shadows wrapped around your little feet - 

And you know that it will end, somehow. Eventually. For time passes, time always passes, no matter how much you wish it wouldn’t. That is absolute - perhaps the only thing in your life that is, at any given moment. You know that the bridge before you will eventually end, and that when you reach that part you too will end with it, but it is instead the things in between that scares you, and the horrifying realisation that the path scares you more than the destination is damning, and you wonder, is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of your life? 

Time doesn’t stop either way - the drops of minutes and seconds continue to fall through your lax grasp, weakened by lethargy and made futile by sloth, your hands ultimately giving up and returning, limp and beaten down, to your sides. You try and fail to see the point of reaching at something that cannot be held. I’ll try better next time, you vow, although you know that ‘next time’, and the next time after that, will just be a repeated cycle of what is happening now - you’ll feel like you’re doing something, going somewhere, and then when you take a step, you’ll realise that you’re once again on a bridge, this time filled with more holes and rotten wood and senseless gaps, stretching off into the mouth of that inescapable void that seems to go on, and on, and on, and on and on and on and on forever and ever, and ever, with only mirages of ends in sight. You know that decades later you will still be on that same bridge. 

In your dreams of successes and fulfilment and happiness, the bridge in the future is paved with smiles, and each plank is a sturdy step of memories you can look fondly back upon and smile at, and the railings are there, built from love and accomplishments you have made, from the lives you have contributed to and the dreams you, you, have saved. 

In your nightmares, however, you are still standing on the same bridge as you are now, or perhaps worse - this time, you fear, the void is that much closer, and no peace has been made and each step behind you is still filled with holes and rotting wood, still decaying and still falling apart.

And maybe this time the end will be visible, and it won’t be the bright light of warmth and hugs that you’ve awaited for so, so, long - no, instead, a plank, more gaps than wood, will break off silently on one end, dangling uselessly into the abyss, hanging onto the bridge from one pathetic strand, the last of its kind. 

But time doesn’t stop, and you are not ready yet -

And you are falling. 

This was something I wrote during a particularly bad emotional and motivational slump for me. I’m over it, but some days it still feels really, really relevant.

but Time passes, and slumps will pass too. Somehow. 

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

it was her first time seeing the sun

Her eyes grew wide. Great swathes of light billowed down from the heavens, slipping from cloud-made hands and falling like silken hairs through loose fingers. Scattered by the sun, they dabbed upon the sky intermissions of soft yellows and cyclamen pinks, amidst the gravel greys and chalky whites and the colours in between that she couldn’t quite name, broken by lulls of darkness where the clouds grew too thick to penetrate, and clumsy patches of bright blue where the cotton veil broke. The sun itself she couldn’t stare directly at, though most of it was covered; what little she could glimpse at was bright enough to burn her eyes, scorching her face and feet even without heat. All the candles she lit in her old home couldn’t compare to its brightness; even the most painstakingly crafted lantern turned dark before this great body of light, effortlessly bright, whose very existence meant illumination of all that were and would be. The lake that had looked so gloomy at night shimmered with glistening scales, reflecting dazzling shards of gold and silver, and the tips and bends of the tallest leaves in the palm trees glinted lazily as it moved with they wind, like a bejewlled hand showing off its wealth. The sun crowned all, bestowed upon them titles of kings and queens and emperors, from the smallest shrub to the swiftest bird, colour and movement and verve exploding underneath its radiance. 

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

Bridges of Light

Bridges of light

leading to some unknown kingdom, hidden within the clouds

path traced by golden beams and swirling mist

Gloriously

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

sorrow and soul

Its sorrow saturated the abscess of swirling storm, the sinking strands of soul spiraling downards into blissful, silent, oblivion. 

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

stirring in the shadows

...as when something heavy lands in a pond of lethargic dust - swirling, and yet in eternal stagnation - and forces every particle away and outwards from itself, spreading infinitely and chaotically in all directions, relative to itself, aimless and yet unstoppable, an ephemeral extension - 

- choking all in its path and burying them in its impetus. 

[the-circles-of-life]

Gallus gallus Red Junglefowl

Why did the chicken cro—nevermind, the joke’s overused.

But to me, it shows that chickens have been a big part of our life.

In fact, as I’m writing this, there’s a viral study stating that chicken bones in the landfills will be our legacy in the fossil record. There are about 21 billion chickens living today, about three for each person. We slaughter 60 billion of them yearly, more than half the number of all humans that have ever lived.

I too, have raised and eaten many of them in my life. I spent hundreds of hours playing Harvest Moon in the 90s, fooling around with the hens. I started studying animal anatomy by staring at chicken photos on the internet.

It’s impossible to ignore their contribution to our history—beyond MY history.

The Chinese Zodiac features a rooster in their roster. The Europeans feared the mythical cockatrice. Pope Gregory I picked the rooster as an emblem for Christianity.

They have fed countless people from the Ancient Romans to minimum wage millennials in the form of cheap nuggets.

And what do they get in return? They don’t get the glory of dogs or war horses. The word “chicken” refers to a coward, and people say feathered dinosaurs are no longer scary now that they look like chickens. I bet those people have never seen how brutal cockfights are.

To me, domestic chickens reflect our ever-evolving relationship with nature and what we value in it. Wherever humans went, we took chickens with us and bred them to fit our many desires.

Today, a big chunk of the world breeds broilers for their eggs and flesh. But the all-black Cemani of Java is bred for their mystical appearance. In Japan, the Onagadori is considered a National Natural Treasure, thanks to it’s long, trailing phoenix-like tail.

As the final entry in this series, the chicken sums up why I did this project in the first place.

We take the birds for granted. But if we trace back from their beginning as the wild Red Junglefowl in Asia, we start to unravel countless stories.

These stories not only tell how creatures live and evolve, but also how their history is intertwined with ours.

These stories, in the end, are also about us.

—

Franz Anthony is a graphic designer and illustrator. For someone who uses a chicken avatar and draws fish for a living, he tweets a lot about invertebrates.

My main blog · Twitter · Instagram · Behance · Studio 252MYA · Ko-fi · Patreon

[ladybugslikewriting-blog]

the sound of leaf-covered paths

The sound of leaves, scraping against the brick-tile path. The sound of light rain showers, the sound of crinkling plastic-aluminium wrappers, all rolled into one. Rustling in her ears, wrinkling in her mind, fluttering across her skin, touching her arms and feet, gently, mercilessly. 

Like time, flowing sideways, stripped of the trappings of human imagination; sweeping by her feet and dancing forwards faster than she could walk. Like dry sand at the beach, fine and everywhere all at once, caught by an ice cold wind and carrying the smell of salt. Like glass shards, like memories of autumn, and like a crowd’s ovation.